Warden's Fantasy Shorts

Hide and Seek

This is a continuation of Worlds Collide, just saying that. This is still my own original work, even if it seems similar to other things.

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I glanced around, not knowing where to look first. The whole room was kind of overwhelming, I didn't know where to look- do I start with the shelves? The tiny worlds scattered around? Or that pool in the center, trying to make sense of the images flashing through the is it water?

The worlds seemed the most interesting; but which one? Over here, I saw a ball that had a surface covered in lava, another over there had a grey, misty wasteland that ended in a cliff, leaving half of the bottom just glass. I noticed what looked like a most of a tiny planet floating high over the pool. Is it missing a piece? The globe was the only one not surrounded by glass, and the air around it was dark and misty. Fifty feet to the left was a small, oddly shaped, glowing thing, where'd it go? It had stopped glowing, and now I couldn't see it.

The focus shifted on one of the displays around the pool, the picture now showing what looked like a collection of glass balls like those in the room, but these were connected by what looked like glass tubes and appeared in front of a starry backdrop. Is that-

"Fern, your mother is looking for you," the deep voice rang out through the room, making us both freeze. I hadn't noticed the towering doors we'd come through opening again to admit my sister. I also didn't notice Lee approaching me from behind until she spoke.

"Silver, you know you could have just asked to see this." Fern was gone, presumably back to her house for dinner or whatever. I looked around and up into Lee's face, her mismatched green and gold eyes staring back down at me, eyebrow quirked in amusement.

"When I asked before, you said no," I countered, now thoroughly confused.

"I said no then because I was just starting this project, and the beginnings of these things are always messy and dangerous." Lee stood beside me now, taking a huge book off of a shelf, making a note of something in it. Slamming it shut, she beckoned me to follow her. "You're not in trouble, and neither is Fern, by the way."

"We're not? I honestly thought you'd be pissed if you found us."

"If? You thought you'd be able to get one over on me?"

"I'm blonde, okay!" Lee choked, before starting to wheeze with laughter.

"Okay- " a small coughing fit replaced the words for a few seconds before she could continue, "(holy shit, swallowed some spit there) okay, do you want to know what's going on here? 'Cause I can tell you if you want." I nodded eagerly, and Lee continued;

"Welcome to the Haven." She spread her arms wide, gesturing to the entire room. "This is my latest project, and definitely the biggest of all of the other vaults I have."

"You have more of these?"

"Yeah, most of the others are all together in a separate part of the Keep, but this one needs a separate space because it is very different from the others; if I put it with them, they'll probably start to interact, and that is a very bad thing." Lee paused a bit to adjust a few things around the pool. "Each vault is a different universe, but this one is technically a multiverse- an error with one of the others made me have to make this one, and this one has alternate forms that are a bit harder to contain." She grinned at me, "you only found the shallowest layer to this one, there's way more than this. This one I've been giving more of a loose rein to see what happens; that whole thing up there-" she pointed to where the glowing blob had been, "is my main method of viewing this one. I have a harder time interacting because of that, I have to go through a kid in that little blip to do anything, and it's a royal pain in my a-"

"YO, LEE!" Kevin sounded like he was trying not to laugh. HMMM, wonder what that's about?

"Come on, I don't want you in here without me, I'll tell you more later."